Ron Underwood
Tremors

Sunday afternoon, July. Practically impossible to find something decent on TV; instead, while channel surfing, I come across well-known faces. Those of a young Kevin Bacon and Fred Ward, the film is unmistakable for those who, like me, watched it ad libitum as a child in the '90s: Tremors. Here then is the opportunity to rewatch a film I became passionate about many years ago and assess its quality twenty years later.

A few minutes in, I encounter the sequence of the couple building the house and the car being dragged underground. An impeccable, terrifying scene that immediately gave me a very positive impression. As the viewing continued, I then found several other confirmations of the effectiveness of a film that seemingly makes no pretense but is constructed with great shrewdness. An impeccable B-movie.

There is, first of all, a functional and very effective use of profanity and irony: «Son of a bitch! Excuse the language». After the most epic scene of all, the great shooting in Burt's house: «You messed with the wrong motherfucker». As they leave on the cart pulled by the caterpillar: «We had food for five years […] a fallout shelter. And those fucking monsters pop up underground». Later, Rhonda: «Let's run like we've got a fire under our ass! Excuse the language», proving that the script, though simple, has quite the ironic nuances. The ending is wonderful, between ironic profanity and trash horror: «Can you fly, you head of dick?», with the graboid falling and smashing on the rocks, with a great gush of orange blood.

The two protagonists, Val and Earl, are another strong point: they start as individualists and opportunists, trying to profit from the situation until it really becomes serious. The relationship between them is made of constant jabs and provides a certain lightness to the film along with the general irony. But their constant competition shifts from initial selfishness to progressive heroism and protagonism, to prove they can save the reduced population of Perfection. It eventually becomes pure solidarity as the danger intensifies. Earl finally stops being cynical and, with an almost emotional look, confesses his attachment to life. Val is invaded by a lucid madness that leads him to devise the final plan.

The other characters, while they can be superficially assessed as stereotypical, have their own reasons. For example, the couple of warmongers composed of Burt and his wife is amusing because it is actually a parody of middle-class Americans armed to the teeth. The boy left orphaned isn't coddled too much; in fact, he is often the subject of jokes by adults or even mockeries by the director (when a graboid explodes and covers him with guts). Towards the end, when the danger should make them unite, Val and Burt instead argue over leadership and don't hold back.

The alternation between dramatic and carefree tones is the essential feature of the work, which, thanks to very concise editing, ensures a truly high pace. In fact, Tremors passes by in no time, without moments of fatigue or unnecessary scenes. The pace is such that deaths are quickly metabolized but without rendering them irrelevant or light. One despairs, but only for a few moments.

The idea at the foundation of the film is obviously brilliant, and there's no need to recall it. Instead, it is worth highlighting the intelligence in constructing the action dynamics, which, although based on a few fundamental rules, vary progressively throughout the film. In short, the same strategy doesn't work twice with the graboids. And it's this variety that guarantees the film a freshness otherwise unthinkable: the limits of humans and monsters are continuously overcome, avoided by always new strategies, different cunning, or overwhelming use of force. The narrative scheme flows then with great fluidity because it never repeats itself.

This is possible thanks to properly calibrated situational choices: an isolated Nevada town, few inhabitants, a geographical situation that requires crossing wide spaces where the graboids frolic, the impossibility of communication. The narrative device is worthy of a great film because with few elements, it constructs 90 intense minutes of adventures.

In short, Tremors is to be considered fully a cult. Also because, to this day, a type of cinema like this appears decidedly unachievable and distant: a low-budget, dirty cinema with improper language, authentically dusty. The special effects are also wonderful in this sense: no computer graphics, but splendid animatronics that replicate the movements of the snake-tongues as well as those of the monstrous heads emerging from the ground. One perceives that the monsters are real, and the effect is of great impact. The slimy blood, the drool, the putrescent flesh, the carcasses: everything appears incredibly real.

7.5/10